Forces have achieved equilibrium, – we wrote two weeks ago[16] upon the first reports of the all-Russian political strike, when it became apparent that the government did not dare to deploy all its military means at once.

Forces have achieved equilibrium, – we repeated a week ago[17], when the Manifesto of October 17th was the "final word" of political news, signifying before all the people and before all the world the irresolution of tsarism and its retreat.

But equilibrium of forces by no means excludes struggle; on the contrary, it makes it especially acute. The government's retreat, as we have already said, is merely its selection of a new position, more convenient from its point of view, for the engagement. The declaration of "freedoms" that parade on a piece of paper called the Manifesto of October 17th is merely an attempt to prepare the moral conditions for struggle against the revolution, – while Trepov, at the head of all-Russian Black Hundreds, prepares the material conditions for this struggle.

The denouement approaches. The new political situation is taking shape with a striking, only to revolutionary epochs characteristic, rapidity. The government began to yield in words and immediately began preparing an offensive in deed. Following the promises of a constitution came the wildest and most shameful violence, as though deliberately calculated to represent even more graphically to the people all the real significance of the real power of autocracy. The contradiction between promises, words, pieces of paper and reality became infinitely more palpable. Events provided magnificent confirmation of that truth which we have long hammered home and shall always hammer home to our readers: until the factual power of tsarism is overthrown, all its concessions, up to and including even a "constituent" assembly, – are one phantom, a mirage, a sleight of hand.

The revolutionary workers of Petrograd expressed this with remarkable vividness in one of those daily bulletins{47} which have not yet reached us, but of which foreign newspapers have begun reporting more and more frequently, struck and frightened by the might of the proletariat. "We have been granted freedom of assembly, – wrote the strike committee (we translate back from English into Russian, which of course necessarily introduces certain inaccuracies), – but our assemblies are surrounded by troops. We have been granted freedom of the press, but censorship continues to exist. Freedom of science has been promised, but the university is occupied by soldiers. Inviolability of the person has been granted, but the prisons are overflowing with the arrested. Witte has been granted to us, but Trepov continues to exist. A constitution has been granted, but autocracy continues to exist. We have been given everything, but we have nothing."

The "Manifesto" is suspended by Trepov. The Constitution is held up by Trepov. The freedoms have been clarified in their true significance by that same Trepov. The amnesty has been mutilated by Trepov.

But what manner of man is this Trepov? An extraordinary personality, whom it would be especially important to remove? Nothing of the sort. He is the most ordinary police official, who performs the most mundane work of autocracy, wielding troops and police.

Why then has this most ordinary police official and his most ordinary "work" suddenly acquired such immense significance? Because the revolution has taken an immense step forward, has brought the actual denouement nearer. Led by the proletariat, the people mature politically not by days but by hours, – or, if you prefer, not by years but by weeks. And if before a people still politically asleep Trepov was the most ordinary police official, then before a people that has become conscious of itself as a political force, Trepov has become impossible, embodying in himself all the savagery, criminality and senselessness of tsarism.

The revolution teaches. It gives all classes of the people and all the peoples of Russia excellent concrete lessons on the theme of the essence of a constitution. The revolution teaches by bringing forward the successive political tasks demanding solution in their most graphic, tangible obviousness, compelling the masses of the people to feel these tasks, making it impossible for the people to exist without solving these tasks, exposing in deed the worthlessness of all and every kind of coverings, excuses, promises, acknowledgments. "We have been given everything, but we have nothing." Because we have been "given" only promises, because we have no real power. We have come right up to freedom, we have forced everyone and everything, even the tsar, to acknowledge the necessity of freedom. But we do not need acknowledgment of freedom, we need actual freedom. We do not need a piece of paper promising legislative rights to representatives of the people. We need actual dominion of the people. The closer we have come to it, the more unbearable has become its absence. The more alluring the tsar's manifestoes, the more impossible has tsarist power become.

The struggle is approaching its denouement, the decision of the question of whether real power remains in the hands of the tsar's government. As for acknowledgment of the revolution, everyone has acknowledged it now. Mr. Struve and the Liberationists acknowledged it long ago, Mr. Witte has now acknowledged it, Nicholas Romanov has acknowledged it. I promise you everything you want, says the tsar, only let me keep the power, allow me to fulfill my promises myself. This is what the tsar's manifesto amounts to, and it is understandable that it could not but thrust the people toward decisive struggle. I grant everything except power, – declares tsarism. Everything is a phantom except power, – replies the revolutionary people.

The actual significance of that apparent absurdity to which matters in Russia have come lies in tsarism's striving to deceive and circumvent the revolution through a deal with the bourgeoisie. The tsar promises the bourgeoisie more and more, trying to see whether at last a general turn of the propertied classes toward "order" will not begin. But so long as this "order" is embodied in the lawlessness of Trepov and his Black Hundreds, – the tsar's appeal risks remaining a voice crying in the wilderness. The tsar needs both Witte and Trepov equally: Witte to entice some; Trepov to hold back others; Witte for promises, Trepov for deeds; Witte for the bourgeoisie, Trepov for the proletariat. And before us there unfolds again, only on an incomparably higher level of development, the same picture we saw at the beginning of the Moscow strikes: liberals conduct negotiations, workers conduct struggle.

Trepov understood perfectly his role and his true significance. He may have only hurried too much, – for diplomatic Witte, – but, after all, he feared to be late, seeing how rapidly the revolution is advancing. Trepov was even forced to hurry, for he felt that the forces at his disposal were diminishing.

Simultaneously with the constitutional manifesto of autocracy there began the autocratic forestalling of the constitution. The Black Hundreds set to work as Russia had never yet seen. Reports of massacres, of pogroms, of unheard-of brutalities come pouring in from all corners of Russia. White terror reigns. Wherever possible, the police raise and organize the dregs of capitalist society for robbery and violence, giving drink to the refuse of the urban population, organizing Jewish pogroms, inciting the beating of "students" and rebels, helping to "educate" the zemstvo men. Counterrevolution works at full capacity. Trepov "justifies himself." They shoot with machine guns (Odessa), gouge out eyes (Kiev), throw people from the fifth floor onto the pavement, take buildings by storm and hand them over to pillage and destruction, set fires and do not allow them to be extinguished, shoot down those who dare to resist the Black Hundreds. From Poland to Siberia, from the shores of the Gulf of Finland to the Black Sea, – everywhere the same thing.

But alongside this rampage of the Black Hundreds, with this orgy of autocratic power, with these final convulsions of the monster-tsarism, there breaks through clearly a new and renewed onslaught of the proletariat, which, as always, only seemingly grows quiet after every upsurge of the movement, in reality gathering strength and preparing for a decisive blow. The lawlessness of the police has now acquired in Russia a completely different character from what it had before, – for reasons noted by us above. Along with explosions of Cossack vengeance and Trepov's "revenge," the decomposition of tsarist power goes forward and forward. This is evident both in the provinces and in Finland and in Petrograd, it manifests itself both in those places where the people are most downtrodden and political development weakest, and in the borderlands with non-Russian populations, and in the capital, where the greatest drama of the revolution promises to be played out.

Indeed, compare these two telegrams which we take from the Viennese bourgeois-liberal newspaper lying before us{48}: "Tver. The mob, in the presence of Governor Sleptsov, attacked the building of the zemstvo institutions. Besieged by the mob, the house was then set on fire. The firemen refused to extinguish it. Troops stood by, taking no action against the rioters" (we do not, of course, vouch for the complete authenticity of this particular report, but that similar and a hundred times worse things are being carried out everywhere is an incontestable fact). "Kazan. The people disarmed the police. The weapons taken from it were distributed among the population. A people's militia was organized. Complete order prevails."

Is it not instructive to compare the two pictures? Vengeance, lawlessness, pogrom. Overthrow of tsarist power and organization of a victorious uprising.

Finland shows us these same phenomena on an incomparably wider scale. The tsar's viceroy has been driven out. The lackey-senators have been removed by the people. Russian gendarmes are thrown out. They attempt to take revenge (telegram from Haparanda of November 4 n.s.), damaging railway communications. Then detachments of armed people's militia are sent out to arrest the rampaging gendarmes. At a meeting of citizens in Torneå it was decided to organize the importation of weapons and free literature. Thousands and tens of thousands are enrolling in the Finnish militia in cities and villages. Word has it that the Russian garrison of a strong fortress (Sveaborg) has expressed sympathy with the risen people and has transferred the fortress to the people's militia. Finland exults. The tsar makes concessions, is ready to convene the Diet, revokes the illegal Manifesto of February 15, 1899{49}, accepts the "resignation" of the senators driven out by the people. And at the same time "Novoe Vremya" advises blockading all the harbors of Finland and suppressing the uprising with armed force. According to telegrams of foreign newspapers, much Russian troops have been quartered in Helsinki (it is unknown how suitable they are for suppressing the uprising). Russian military vessels have, it is said, entered the inner harbor of Helsinki.

Petrograd. In revenge for the exultation of the revolutionary people (over the concession wrested from the tsar), Trepov strikes back. The Cossacks run amok. Massacres intensify. The police openly organize Black Hundreds. The workers intended to arrange a gigantic demonstration on Sunday, November 5 (October 23). They wanted solemnly to honor the memory of their heroic comrades who had fallen in the struggle for freedom. The government, for its part, was preparing a gigantic bloodshed. For Petrograd it had in store what was played out on a small scale in Moscow (the massacre at the funeral of the workers' leader Bauman). Trepov wanted to use the moment when he had not yet dispersed his troops by sending part of them to Finland, – the moment when workers were going to demonstrate rather than fight.

The Petrograd workers saw through the enemy's design. The demonstration was called off. The workers' committee decided to stage the last battle not at the moment chosen by Trepov. The workers' committee calculated correctly that a whole series of circumstances (the uprising in Finland among them) made postponement of the struggle disadvantageous for Trepov, advantageous for us. In the meantime – intensive preparation of armaments is underway. Propaganda in the troops is making remarkable progress. Reports come of the arrest of 150 sailors from the 14th and 18th naval crews, of 92 complaints filed over the past week-and-a-half against officers for sympathy with revolutionaries. Proclamations calling on troops to go over to the side of the people are distributed even to the patrols "guarding" Petrograd. The freedom of the press, promised within limits permitted by Trepov, the revolutionary proletariat is pushing back with its mighty hand to somewhat wider limits. On Saturday, October 22 (November 4), according to foreign newspaper reports, only those Petrograd newspapers came out that agreed with the workers' demand to ignore censorship. Two German Petrograd newspapers that wished to remain "loyal" (servile) could not be published. "Legal" newspapers – from the moment when the boundaries of legality began to be determined not by Trepov but by the union of Petrograd strikers – began speaking in an unusually bold language. "The strike is suspended only temporarily, – they telegraph from October 23 (November 5) in the "Neue Freie Presse," – they declare that the strike will resume when the time comes to strike the final blow at the old order. The concessions no longer make any impression whatever on the proletariat. The situation is extremely dangerous. Revolutionary ideas are gaining ever wider masses. The working class feels itself master of the situation. Hence people are already leaving here those whom the impending catastrophe frightens."

The denouement draws near. The victory of the people's uprising is already not far off. The slogans of revolutionary social-democracy are being transformed into life with unexpected rapidity. Let Trepov continue to dash about between revolutionary Finland and revolutionary Petrograd, between revolutionary borderlands and revolutionary provinces. Let him attempt to find for himself at least one secure spot for free military operations. Let the tsar's manifesto spread more widely, let news of events in the revolutionary centers spread further, – this will give us new supporters, this will bring new vacillation and decomposition into the thinning ranks of the tsar's supporters.

The all-Russian political strike has performed its task excellently, advancing the uprising, dealing terrible wounds to tsarism, tearing away the vile farce of the vile State Duma. The general rehearsal is finished. We stand, apparently, on the eve of the very drama itself. Witte flows away in streams of words. Trepov flows away in streams of blood. The tsar has too few promises left that he could still give. Trepov has too few Black Hundred troops left that could still be moved in the final battle. But the ranks of the revolutionary army keep growing, strength is hardened in separate engagements, the red banner is raised over the new Russia higher and higher.

"Proletariy" No. 25, November 16 (3), 1905

Printed according to the text of the newspaper "Proletariy"